LA Guest Lecture: Robbin Sotir

School of Environmental Design and Rural Development - Landscape Architecture programs presents:

The Jack and Gerry Vandergrift Memorial Lecture:

"Soil Bioengineering - Bridging Ecology and Engineering"

by

Robbin Sotir, President of Robbin B. Sotir & Associates
Marietta, Georgia

Wednesday, February 24, 2016
11:45 am
Landscape Architecture, Room 125

The presentation will cover aspects of Robbin's practice in Marietta, Georgia, including:

• Content: Definitions, similarities and differences to conventional engineering practices.
• Discussions on their compatibility and important adjunctive backup elements and functions.
• Specific reinforcement systems to construct highly steepened sites.
• Case studies throughout the watershed ranging from upland landslide repairs to stream and river stabilization and restoration.
• Ways we give back to the community.

Robbin B. Sotir, President of Robbin B. Sotir & Associates, Inc., is a practitioner in the field of soil bioengineering. She is an alumnus of the Bachelor of Landscape Architecture program at the University of Guelph.  Over the past 25 years, serving on interdisciplinary teams, she has completed over 250 projects in reservoir shoreline, cut and fill slopes, river and streambank stabilization, and wetland buffers in North and Central America, Europe and Southeast Asia. She is internationally known for her work in the evaluation and design of environmentally sensitive projects throughout the watershed and frequently lectures on subjects related to soil bioengineering, biotechnical slope stabilization, water quality, erosion and sediment control, stormwater and watershed management. She also has had intensive European training in soil bioengineering.

Ms. Sotir's efforts and commitment to soil bioengineering have had a major impact on the development and success of this technology in the United States and Canada for environmentally sound water and land stabilization and restoration work. She has developed soil bioengineering technology awareness and understanding as a work that is based on sound engineering practices that are integrated with ecological principles, producing sustainable comprehensive solutions that protect and restore function back into systems. She is familiar with and uses several stream classification systems, including the Rosgen System.

Working as an international soil bioengineering consultant, she applies specialized knowledge and skills regarding watershed/catchment management for cut and fill slopes, flood control, landfills, mine sites, military, recreation, transportation and transmission corridors, private, commercial, and industrial lands, greenways, water quality, fluvial systems management, including landscape restoration, erosion and sediment control. She has developed a comprehensive soil bioengineering selection design process of qualitative and quantitative analysis and critical issues assessment for design development of construction plans and specifications, master planning, feasibility studies, and implementation procedures that focus on cost effective, highly functional environmental systems with low maintenance requirements and life cycle costs.

This guest lecture is sponsored by the Jack and Gerry Vandergrift Memorial Fund.

All welcome to attend.